College football statistical systems
I hope you enjoyed last week’s College Football Personnel Transitional Systems piece on VSiN.com. It leads into this article, as I move from PERSONNEL characteristics to STATISTICAL characteristics in determining which teams are likely to improve or decline in 2023. I like to separate the pieces because, for one, it’s a lot to digest. And two, it’s really two different focuses, last week being on coaching and player personnel. This one being on some of last season’s statistical traits for teams that make them prime candidates for improving or worsening this fall.
Recalling some of my thoughts last week as to the foundation of this article series … One of the most difficult things about handicapping college sports is the process of evaluating teams from one season to the next. There are a lot of factors that can affect a team’s strength and or how much different they might wind up being from the season prior. You have to consider personnel losses, coaching changes, momentum lost or gained and many other factors. Sometimes the changes can be immense. Adding to the difficulty is the thought that many programs are taking players right out of their most recent recruiting or transfer class and plugging them in starting spots. The massive growth of the portal and assessing its immediate impact has only increased the challenge.
Over the last few years we have witnessed situations never seen before. The 2020 season was of course, the COVID-19 season, and that featured few to no fans in the stands, players and teams opting out and major modifications to every team’s schedule. In 2021, we saw the impact of “super seniors” and the most returning experience to the field that we’ve ever encountered. For 2022, the experience factor took a huge hit, as those super seniors were gone for the most part, leaving behind veteran but inexperienced players who otherwise would have benefited from starting roles. That had sort of a return-to-normalcy effect on college football. Other than the transfer portal expansion, we are as close to pre-COVID-era norms as we’ve been. We’ll see how it plays out in the upcoming season.
What I have sought to do in recent years in addressing the difficulty of massive year-to-year change in college football was to try to quantify the signs of potential improvement or decline out of teams when considering some year-to-year transitional situations. Last week I looked at personnel factors, many of which make up my College Football Stability scores. This week I dive into statistics from the prior season that can best forecast a team’s upcoming prospects.
Are there any revealing statistics from prior season that can predict the coming season?
Sometimes teams just catch consistently good or bad breaks throughout a season that impact their record and spread success significantly. Let’s dig through the data to see if we can find anything of this nature that might help us find some strong fade or follow teams for 2023.
· There have been 55 teams over the last 10 seasons that have endured losing seasons despite outscoring their opponents. Of those, 21 of them brought back 13 or more starters, including their quarterback. The collective improvement of this group of teams was about 14.2% SU. These teams combined to go 53.1% ATS.